Always Running

That night, Chava—a Sangra warrior—attends a party in San Gabriel. As he’s walking inside, eight Lomas, including Puppet, step out of the darkness and chase after Chava. They beat and stab him, and then run into the night.

That fall, Luis starts his senior year of school—he’s ToHMAS president. He attends the new Chicano Studies class, and writes a column on Chicano issues for the student paper. After learning that a history teacher, Mr. Humes, called a student a “chola whore,” he bursts into Mr. Humes’s classroom and shouts, “We refuse to take any more abuse.” Mr. Humes goes to Mr. Madison, who calls Luis into his office. Luis tells Mr. Madison that he and other Chicanos are taking things “into our own hands.”

In the following days, Chicano students find out about Mr. Humes’s words. Someone slashes Mr. Humes’s tires, and other Chicano students attack white students. Luis witnesses a fight between white and Chicano students, and tries to pull them apart. In the struggle, someone hits him hard, sending him to the hospital. Back at school, his face covered in stitches, Luis speaks before the school, saying, “We can’t stop fighting until the battle’s won.”

Soon afterwards, Mr. Pérez, a popular Chicano teacher, is fired, supposedly because he’s inattentive to students’ needs (though the opposite is true, Luis claims). Luis talks about organizing a walkout to protest Pérez’s firing. Mrs. Baez encourages him to wait for Mr. Madison to “work this out,” but Luis ignores her.

On the day of the walkout, scheduled for 1 pm, Mr. Madison announces a surprise assembly at the stadium. Luis knows Mr. Madison is doing this to interfere with the walkout. At the assembly, Madison argues that some students are trying to “undermine” the school. Luis is angry, but also proud—he thinks, “all of this was because of me!”

Meanwhile, Mrs. Baez returns Luis’s stories and poems, telling him that they’re wonderful and suggesting that he submit them for publication. Around the same time, Luis gets an offer from a university professor to paint a mural for the school. He is also offered an Economic Opportunity Grant at California State College.

Luis pauses to discuss the Chicano experience with language. As with many Chicanos, Luis is discouraged from speaking Spanish in school, but he doesn’t learn English very well, either. And yet Luis, like so many other Chicanos, is poetic and expressive. Luis wishes that schools could nurture the literary instinct in their Chicano students instead of training Chicanos to think of themselves as stupid or inarticulate.

Luis wins a prize in a statewide literary contest. He’s given a publishing contract and flown out to Berkeley. Luis is very proud of himself, and so is his mother. Shortly afterwards, he graduates from high school. He doesn’t attend the official graduation, but he celebrates with ToHMAS friends. Shortly after Luis graduates, Mr. Pérez gets his job back and Mr. Humes receives “an early retirement.” In 1972, Luis attends college at Cal State-L.A., where he majors in Chicano Studies and Broadcast Journalism. He signs a contract with a press called Quinto Sol, and works on a book about his early life. Luis also visits high schools to speak about Chicano issues.

During one of his high school visits, Luis meets a high school student named Camila Martínez. Luis invites Camila to come to some of the study sessions he’s been organizing in Los Angeles schools. Shortly afterwards, he asks her to come to a dance at Cal State, and she accepts. At this time, Luis is dating multiple women (meanwhile, his brother Joe has married and had a child, Louie, named after Luis).

One night, Luis learns that one of his girlfriends, Terry, is pregnant with his child. Luis is stunned. He doesn’t want to raise a child, as he’s too busy with his studies and political organizing. He tells Terry that she should have an abortion, and Terry is appalled. Soon after, Luis learns from Terry’s sister that Terry has gone missing. Terry’s sister also raises the possibility that Terry was lying about being pregnant. Luis concludes, “I never did find out where Terry went.”

The gang warfare between the neighborhoods continues, despite Luis’s attempts to preserve the peace. One night, a gunfight breaks out between Sangra and Loma gang members. The next morning police officers arrest Chicharrón for the murder of a teenaged gang member who died in the gunfight. Chicharrón, seventeen at the time, is jailed for accessory to murder.

Meanwhile, Luis starts spending more time with Camila. Life is going well for him, especially now that he has “a beautiful woman at [his] side.”

Luis witnesses a fight between a woman and some police officers who are trying to arrest her. The woman resists arrest, and when the officers punch the woman in the face, Luis feels he has to intervene. He attacks the officers, and the officers overpower him and arrest him. He now faces serious prison time for assaulting an officer.

For his preliminary hearing, Luis is assigned a public defender and grouped with another defendant named Licha, aged twenty-seven. Licha is charged with disorderly conduct. Luis befriends Licha, and they make a pact: whoever gets out first has to visit the other one in jail.

Luis now has to figure out how to post bail. After trying to get money from his brother and parents, he’s forced to go to a bail bondsman, who lends him the money he needs to get out of jail. Following his pact, Luis visits Licha in jail. During his visit, Luis learns that Licha has been classified as suicidal, since she tried to cut her wrists the previous night. Luis encourages Licha to be strong, and Licha thanks him for visiting her. The two find it surprisingly easy to talk to each other, and Luis notes that he found her very attractive.

In the coming weeks, Luis focuses on his upcoming hearing. He speaks to a judge in San Gabriel who helped him when he was a juvenile offender. Amazingly, the judge agrees to write a letter to the court on his behalf. Luis also obtains letters from some of his professors at college, testifying to his good character. Luis calls Licha almost every day. They’ll be grouped together on the day of their hearing.

Licha invites Luis to visit her in her neighborhood. Luis obliges, but when, after hours of travel and searching, he finally gets to Licha’s house, nobody answers the door. It’s late, and Luis is so tired that he’s forced to sleep in a nearby church.

While Luis prepares for his hearing, his work and other projects suffer. Quinto Sol is starting to collapse due to disagreements between its editors, and Luis loses his mural contract, too. Luis speaks to his public defender, who tells Luis that he should plead guilty, a suggestion that Luis immediately disagrees with, even after Licha encourages him to do so.

On the day of his hearing, Luis swallows hard and tells his judge that he’ll accept a guilty plea in exchange for a lesser charge of disorderly conduct. The judge accepts, sentencing Luis to a couple months in jail and a small fine. Licha is sentenced to jail time at a different location. They hug and promise to get together when they’re both free again.

On the day Luis is released from jail, Licha comes to see him. She invites him to stay with her in her neighborhood for a few days, and Luis agrees, even though he remembers what happened the last time he tried to visit. That night, Luis and Licha kiss for the first time. But just one month later, their relationship comes to a sudden end. Licha tells Lus that he’s too young for her.